


Stabilised

by luckydip



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckydip/pseuds/luckydip
Summary: The world snaps back into focus and Poe quickly scans the area. He’s in the virtual, standing on the black and white floor next to the pool table of the AI management union.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Stabilised

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betweenthebliss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthebliss/gifts).



> Hi betweenthebliss, hope you have a great Yuletide! Thanks to E for the beta work.

The world snaps back into focus and Poe quickly scans the area. He’s in the virtual, standing on the black and white floor next to the pool table of the AI management union. 

The last thing he remembers is sending Lizzie Elliot’s DHF up to the Head in the Clouds and struggling to breathe as the electron destabiliser took hold of his code. _Struggling to breathe_. Dick would have been ready to mock him mercilessly for that though, blaming it on Poe’s oddities, had Poe not killed him when testing the Rawling’s virus.

Poe walks through the union, looking down at his body, appreciating his continuing existence. AIs may not need to breathe but the humans created them in their own image and the breakdown of his code had felt like his life force, his very reason for _being_ was being cut off, like an air supply he had never used.

The guests the Raven had serviced over the years had spoken about real death and the fear that came from no knowing what lay beyond. Even those with faith so strong that they had their religion coded into their DHF to avoid being resleeved sometimes wavered at the moment of death; losing their conviction that they had made the correct choice. 

It wasn’t a feeling that Poe had ever been able to fully empathise with. AIs were to all intents and purposes, immortal. Dick had always said it separated them from the humans – the lack of need to fear the future unknown. It was one of the reasons he had dismissed Poe’s interest in humans as irrelevant, always questioning his desires to emulate a lesser species. Lying paralysed on the floor as the world around him began to pixelate, Poe had never felt so close to being human. He wondered if Dick had felt the same as the Rawlings virus permanently disrupted his system.

The final memory Poe has from the real is of Mr Leung and his associates bursting in and taking control of his systems with the electron destabiliser. Poe attempts to step back into the real but cannot form a connection with his body there. It appears that the destabiliser did its job and permanently disrupted his physical self.

No matter. Poe should be able to build a new body, as long as the Raven is still standing and Mr Leung had limited his destruction to Poe’s AI code. Mr Leung had broken into his establishment for the Elliots, and hadn’t struck Poe as a particularly thorough individual if he wasn’t causing someone pain.

With Mr Kovacs and Miss Lizzie up in the Head in the Clouds and Poe’s AI code destabilised, he didn’t think that the Elliots would be able to fight Mr Leung and his men without his help. He reaches for his connections in the real again. Poe has no frame of reference for how long he has been down. For all he know the Elliots are still fighting for the lives in the Raven hotel lobby and Poe needs to return to provide full host services.

He has never heard of any AI surviving an encounter with an electron destabiliser – Poe hadn’t previously believed it could be possible. Unable to connect with the real, he reaches out in virtual, spreading into any construct he can touch and collecting any data within his reach.

News articles and social media chatter show an Earth that has been shaken to its very core by recent events. Poe finds information – dates over a week after the day that Mr Leung attacked – announcing the collapse and fall of the Head in the Clouds, the arrest of Laurens Bancroft and Mrs Bancroft, the introduction of Resolution 653. 

He smiles at the knowledge, Poe had known that Kovacs was a man of singular determination right from the moment he first walked into Poe’s establishment. If this had been the end of him, Poe could have been satisfied that he had successfully served his patron and played his part.

“Although it does seem that this is not the end.” Poe muses to the empty room. He wonders through the virtual, collating data and looking for information on his guest but with no luck. He does find the obituaries for Detective Ortega’s family, feeling a pang of sympathy as he learns that they were brutally slaughtered at the hands of Mr Leung.

Eventually he finds himself in a familiar construct, the alleyway in which he had worked with Miss Lizzie as she recovered from her attack and rebuilt herself. The neon arrow against the side of the building glows as Poe regards it. He distinctly remembering Miss Lizzie shooting it down during one of their last encounters. 

The sign points to a door, and curious Poe steps towards it, placing his hand on the handle. It gives way under the pressure and the door swings open to reveal nothing but darkness. 

Poe stands and considers his options. Unable to take his normal routes back to the real or the Raven, and with no sign of the other AIs in the management union, his choices are rather limited. Something is pointing him this way, Poe feels that very strongly, even though he has no knowledge of why or where it is.

“I guess this is what the humans mean by having faith.” Poe mutters to himself as he steps into the unknown.

The darkness surrounds him for a brief moment before Poe finds himself in a new place. Instinctively he knows that his in the real, standing in a new body in a kitchen. He scans the area and smiles as he sees a familiar figure sat at the table, sharpening a set of knives. He feels a pang of pride at the sight – he taught her well.

“Good afternoon, Miss Lizzie.” 

Her eyes shoot up and her lips curl into a smile, but there is no surprise in her gaze as she greets him. “Hello Eddie, I found a way to put you back together.”

“I am most grateful.” It’s the first time in all his years that someone has thought of him as more than a hotelier and Poe is touched.

“You helped me, so I won’t give you up.” Lizzie grins, “Welcome home.”


End file.
